I suspect the responses you’re getting stem from the original phrasing:

what’s the point, evolutionarily, to self destruct after reproducing

The question has an implicit claim that there IS a point, which people are rightly pointing out is not necessarily the case (as you have acknowledged). It certainly is an interesting question to wonder if there could be some benefit anyway, so it would probably have helped to frame it that way.

Not saying anyone is required to meet any kind of bar in the level of discourse in a casual online forum, just an observation of cause and effect, for what it’s worth.

No reason to apologize! Writing to/reading from internet strangers is what we’re all here for.

Therapy (done right) is great, though, so I’m glad you’re pursuing that too.

Good luck!

Evolution doesn’t make deliberate, strategic choices. Random mutations result in new behaviors/properties that may or may not be beneficial, and selection removes those mutations that prevent reproduction from the gene pool. Not every mutation will be beneficial, but as long as it’s not harmful enough to stop reproduction, it can persist.

If there were two groups of octopuses, one with the self-destructive behavior and one without, then there would be pressure from competition. In that situation, your point would have more of an impact. But without that pressure, there’s nothing to drive the selection. And the mutation won’t occur just because it would be helpful for it to do so - it’s random.

At least, that’s how I understand it. I’m not a biologist or anything.

At least a blåhaj is kind of like a pokémon.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply! Glad you found at least some of it interesting.

Not sure where you’d want to take it from here, so I’ll just leave you with a little more food for thought.

Based on what you wrote, it’s not entirely clear where your idea of what it means to be a girl comes from. Is it some kind of instinctive, innate image that comes from within, or is it some external image that you have been pressured or conditioned into internalizing? How can you even tell the difference?

From what you said about rigid frameworks and your upbringing, it sounds like you could benefit from learning/exploring different ways of looking at the world. In my own situation, I’ve found it helpful to study logical fallacies as a way of thinking things through more critically, and different forms of philosophy to shake my perspective up. The former gives a good lens to help decide what is useful for you in the latter. Could be worth exploring if that’s a goal of yours. Not that I have any idea whether or not you’re doing this sort of thing already.

Ended up writing way more than I intended, so I’m editing this to add this introduction at the start. From the details of your post and comments, I’m not sure if you want to hear exclusively from people who have detransitioned, or if perspectives from people who are still transitioning are also welcome. I have not detransitioned, so if it’s the former, just ignore my ramblings. 😅

I remember having feelings along these lines really early in transition, during the first few chaotic months after coming out of repression. At the time I was concerned about what it means to be a woman, how a woman is supposed to think about things and look at things, feel about things, etc., and how I was supposed to realign my habits and outlook to match that hypothetical ideal.

Ultimately, what I have come to understand and internalize (probably still ongoing, but I’ve come far) is that I’ve always been a woman, so the way a woman thinks and feels is the way I’ve always thought and felt, I just didn’t know it. There’s no need to change anything inherent to us - we had already arrived before we started. For me, what needed changing was to to try to unpack the various learned behaviors that gradually replaced and buried my intuitions and impulses, and unlearn them to see where I end up. Essentially, just to be more spontaneous/genuine, and less inhibited. Still a work in progress, but it’s getting better all the time.

I’m not sure if that fits your situation, but it’s what came to mind when you described feeling disconnected from “absolute” womanhood. I’m increasingly convinced that the very idea of some kind of absolute or canonical vision of womanhood is inherently sexist and oppressively dogmatic. As you yourself pointed out, it presents in infinitely many ways, so how can it be absolute?

If these musings seem relevant to you, I highly recommend this post: https://stainedglasswoman.substack.com/p/jubilee That was one of the most helpful articles I’ve come across to help shift my understanding of and thinking about gender in general, and helped me get to my current mindset.

Bringing all this back to your original question of how I deal with the fact that I "will never be a real girl” - I essentially reject the premise of the question. To the extent that the concept of a “real girl” even exists, I already am one, and always have been. For me, the only practical questions along those lines are how I deal with not passing, or with not achieving my aesthetic preferences. Not sure if those interpretations of the question are interesting for you or not, so I’ll answer them in brief.

On not passing: Passing isn’t really important to me. I’m fortunate to live in an area where I don’t feel like my safety is threatened by being visibly trans. If that changes, I’d probably deal with it by moving somewhere else, where people are less dickish.

On not being able to look how I’d prefer: This one is a downer, for sure. It doesn’t really affect whether or not I’d transition, though. Even if I’m not pretty, I’m still so much happier transitioning than not that it just doesn’t matter in terms of decision-making. And as a bonus, I’m given to understand that feeling down over body image problems puts you in the same boat as the vast majority of women in the world (cis or not), so if anything, that should get you closer to that “absolute” ideal of womanhood anyway. I basically deal with this from both ends: by gradually making changes to get closer to where I’d like to be, and by gradually working on mental health to be less concerned about it. Even if there are limits to how far I can go in both directions, I still feel a lot better for continuously making the attempt.

The problem is that what you describe is not conservatism, it’s just basic competence in governance. It’s an impressive achievement of the radical right that they have managed to get people to conflate the two.

Anyone know a good way to get gold in a way that makes it easy to guarantee the purity, will be in small chunks that would be easy to barter with, and won’t waste money with value-added things like jewels and other ornamentation? Every time I’ve looked into it, I quickly get confused and give up.

I’m also not sure how much would be advisable to bring in a bug-out bag without going overboard.

What about the trolls?

Oh, for sure. Skirts are also really comfy. Just thought it was funny given the context.

I like retrospective threads like this. Puts things in perspective. Growing up under conditions like that, it would have been weird if I hadn’t repressed my gender identity. Pity things couldn’t have changed earlier, and let me realize sooner.

Best part is that the “not gay” shorts look like a skirt. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

The only thing I really noticed in my brain is being more sleepy all the time. For me, heightened emotions already happened before HRT, after coming out of repression. Maybe the hormones have amplified it even more, but if so it’s not dramatic enough to be easy to tell. If nothing else, though, experiencing the physical changes has had a marked positive effect on my mood through euphoria, relief from dysphoria, etc. Can’t say for sure if some of that might be from the hormones alone. It can be difficult to separate the confounding variables.

I assume it’s to settle a bet with some other oligarch.

I don’t know if there are formal rules around the use of these flags (I assume not), but, fwiw, as a trans person myself, I like seeing them worn in general. I don’t really assume or care too much about the person wearing them, but I find it reassuring. Both in the sense of, “hey, at least this one person probably doesn’t have a problem with me existing. One less rando for me to worry about”, and in the sense of, “hey, at least this one person can openly exhibit a symbol of trans support and visibility without having been crucified for it. Hopefully that means I’m unlikely to catch flak for not passing around these here parts”.

I would have been happy to keep giving them money too, if they hadn’t kept doubling down on shady and abusive practices like tying digital purchases to hardware, forcing online check-ins for offline games, and patent trolling. That doesn’t matter one jot, though, since the broad appeal of their products means their audience largely consists of people who don’t notice or care about things like that in the slightest. Makes me wonder if that’s part of the strategy, but then again, I doubt it’s any different for Microsoft or Sony, so maybe it’s moot.

Unfortunately, this was before xkcd. If I’d known about the “lucky 10,000”, I might have been more philosophical about it at the time.

It happened to Harrison.

I still recall how, as a fresh-faced, young gamer just getting into the newfangled realm of online multiplayer, I got absolutely got in Everquest when somebody told me you could get a numeric representation of your current experience points by typing “/ex”.

It was actually short for “/exit”. And in those days, it took a loooooooooooooooooong time to relaunch the game and get logged back in. Learned a valuable lesson about human nature that day. It has served me well.

Yeah, I’m with you. My understanding of the term “shitpost” is that it’s, by definition, low-effort and/or low-quality.